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According to his mother, baby Rohan is enjoying the experience of being in the Upper House, which has often been derided for being stuffy.

"He loves it," said Lady Worthington, as Rohan gurgles happily. "He’s much happier being taken to the Lords than being at home.

"He likes being stimulated so this is ideal. It’s very bright and busy. He looks around at all the gold and the colour. I think he probably thinks it’s normal now."

Rohan has been quite a hit with Their Noble Lordships. Lord Bassam of Brighton, the veteran Labour peer and opposition chief whip, has given over part of his office to Rohan’s babysitter.

"They are all very fond of him," said Lady Worthington, who is married to Srivas Chennu, a neuroscience researcher, and commutes to Parliament from their home in Cambridge "one or two days each week" as she is technically on maternity leave.

The couple will consider full-time childcare, she says, but not while Rohan is still so young.

Last week it was even suggested that Lord Strathclyde, the leader of the Lords, was considering changing the rules so that young mothers could breastfeed their children "discreetly" in the chamber.

Lord Strathclyde later rowed back on that suggestion, but he told The Sunday Telegraph: "I am sure that if there was a request for us to look into this then the relevant committee would examine it with great care and sensitivity."

Baroness Worthington said that she would not personally favour taking her son into the chamber, although she had mistakenly tried to take him into the division lobbies, where peers vote. Outsiders of any kind are banned from the lobbies, making Rohan an unwelcome visitor, in common with anyone without a peerage.

"I can’t take him in the chamber or the division lobbies when there are votes," she said.

"It is not high on my agenda. I haven’t asked for that and I don’t think I would want to breastfeed in the chamber.

"I tried to go through the division lobby with him once and the clerks were so nice, they said ‘You could always change the law, my lady’.

"It’s all been very positive. There are no changing facilities and things like that but we manage and I’m sure there will be one day.

"I can breastfeed in my office sometimes or in one of the toilets where there is a nice chaise-longue, not something you normally find in a toilet."

Bryony Worthington’s appointment as a peer at such a young age was something of a surprise to her — even though she knows Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, well and played a key role helping him, as energy secretary, write the 2008 Climate Change Act.

She was director of the carbon trading think-tank and campaign group Sandbag, which she founded. She has also been a policy adviser to Scottish and Southern Electricity.

"I think Ed Miliband wanted to do something different and I was glad to accept [the working peerage] but it’s not something I was expecting," she said. "Most things you really strive for in life but this just sort of landed on my plate and it’s a great privilege."

She added: "I’m aware that I’m surrounded by people with great knowledge and experience."

However, she said the House should reform to become more representative of society, and to be "more modern and less medieval".

"You sometimes feel that some of the debates aren’t as topical as they might be," she says, tactfully.